


And Make the World of Colours

by GwaithGweneth



Series: Colours!Verse [1]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blue - Freeform, Colours, Evil, F/M, Family, Father-Daughter Relationship, Fluff, Gen, Good, Grey, Marriage Proposal, Memories, Mind Meld, Mind Rape, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Orange, PTSD, Pink - Freeform, Red - Freeform, Repressed Memories, black - Freeform, colours!verse, daddy!rory is all of the adorable, gold - Freeform, green - Freeform, psychic invasion, silver - Freeform, though actually melody is pretty adorable too, white - Freeform, yellow - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-16
Updated: 2013-02-17
Packaged: 2017-11-29 11:37:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 12,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/686529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GwaithGweneth/pseuds/GwaithGweneth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A set of colour!fics centering around the Pond family. Spoilers through A Good Man Goes To War. Set in my colours!verse, an au where Amy and Rory get their daughter back while she's still a child. A fairly sweet and fluffy fic which is occasionally super angsty, and sometimes more bittersweet than sweet.<br/>Note: While this fic is seldom graphic, it does occasionally discuss potentially triggery issues, such as: kidnapping, character death, torture, physical abuse of a child (non-parental), and mind!rape. The most potentially problematic chapters are 5, 6, and 8; more specific warnings can be found in the chapter notes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Red: Memory

**Author's Note:**

> In this chapter: Melody Pond remembers.  
> This fic is one I wrote a while ago, before LKH. It's finished, and currently up on ff.net, but I wanted to put it here as well (slightly edited as I read through and tweak things). The rest of the chapters should be up with in a day or two.  
> No special warnings for this chapter--though please, always let me know if you find anything I missed that's a potential trigger. As someone who is easily triggered by a number of issues, I would hate to have my writing negatively affect someone in that way.

Melody Pond remembers.

They tore her from her mother's arms before she could speak in words to free her from her mother's influence, but Melody Pond remembers.

She never asks them why, because to ask would require her to give her memories up—she's terribly afraid they'd steal them, if they knew, just like they stole everything else, and she thinks perhaps the memories could make a weapon—but she has figured out by now that it was only flesh which they replaced her with. Not a person like the ones she's met, but a ganger, cold and dead except for what she put into it.

She remembers, faintly, words from a man, old and young who smelled like time. He understood her even though her words were meaningless.

She thinks that might be why. The perfect decoy for the perfect trap.

They didn't realize she would know.

She doesn't understand if it is memory or time, but she remembers.

Melody Pond remembers.

She remembers red, and in her mind she calls it blue.

She remembers words about a box, a big, beautiful, blue box.

She's seen the colour blue, and knows now it isn't red.

But she remembers red, and in her mind she calls it blue.

She remembers her mother's hair, orangey red like fire, like the flames which flicker from the candles in the temples.

She remembers her mother's lips, drawing close to press a kiss like strawberries upon her cheek (she's never eaten strawberries, but she has read of them and knows that they are red and sweet. They give her books to read and teach her knowledge is a weapon. It is the Doctor's favorite and will be hers as well).

She remembers pressing her tiny infant face against her father's soft red shirt, and grabbing at his cool dark armor with her tiny hand.

She does not tell them what she remembers, and does not write where they could read. It breaks her heart (with its red, red blood) that she cannot make her memories tangible. She wishes she could write them down or talk until her tongue (her red, red tongue) falls out. But she does not speak, and does not write.

Then they give her a bedroom with paints and crayons, and she draws her memories in colour. She puts down reds in spirals and lines, and makes a shining web of time. She mixes in the one called blue, which her mother told her of, and does not stop until she sees the memories on paper.

They do not look like people or like pictures; that is not how they look in her mind.

She could not tell you the colour of her father's hair, what he looked like or how his voice sounded. She cannot remember her mother's voice, either. She cannot remember her mother skin, and cannot recall her name.

But Melody Pond remembers.

She does not remember her mother skin, but she can remember her touch.

She cannot remember her mother's voice, but she remembers her cadence and her tone. She remembers her words, or what they mean, and she knows that meaning is what matters.

She does not remember her mother's name, but she remembers the one she was given, and she keeps it like a treasure.

She cannot remember her father's hair, or how his voice sounded, but she remembers how he felt.

Melody Pond remembers.

She remembers in shapes and feelings and lines, and she puts them all on paper and holds them close.

Melody Pond remembers.


	2. Silver: Questions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For a long time Melody doesn't ask questions. When she finally feels she can, they all come at once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No special warnings for this chapter, either. I reworked this chapter more than I think I will most of the others, trying to add some depth to Rory's character since this is possibly the only chapter where we get to see inside his head--not sure how successful I was. As usual, concrit is highly appreciated.

Rory heard the questions long before they came. As soon as Vastra explained (and he thought there was almost definitely something wrong with the fact that it had been Vastra who explained, not the Doctor) he heard the questions coming. He knew that when they came, he wouldn't be able to answer. He knew that no one could answer those questions. No one except the Doctor.

But he didn't know if the Doctor would.

"I know, you know," he said, as he lay beneath the glass floor, connecting the wires the Doctor had told him too.

"Know what?" asked the Doctor. Ignorance suited him poorly.

Rory sighed. "Okay, here's the thing. Weird as I find the idea of you and my daughter, you're a Time Lord. And I hate to drive it home, but as far as we know, you're the last of the Time Lords. And my daughter, she's part Time Lord, yeah? So that makes it your job to teach her what that means, because there isn't anyone else who can. I can teach her what it means to be a Roman, and what it means to be from Leadworth. I can even teach her what it means to know you. Amy and I, we can teach her what it means to be a Pond. But we're going to need a bit of help to teach her how to be a River. Besides, you might be just about the only person in the universe I can trust to work as hard as me and Amy to protect her."

"I know," said the Doctor. "Connect the red wire to the cross hatch, 2/3 of the way down."

Rory did.

...

Melody didn't ask questions.

She had a million billion questions sitting in her head, but she didn't ask them, not ever.

She was a little afraid of the answers.

That wasn't why she didn't ask. Well, not entirely. To ask would mean admitting what she knew, and maybe telling them some things they didn't. And it wouldn't help, anyway. If they knew the answers, they wouldn't tell her, not without twisting the truth.

She knew that she was like the Doctor, and they hated the Doctor. If they didn't realize just how much she had in common with him, she didn't want them to.

So Melody didn't ask questions.

She didn't ask her parent's names, or where they were. She didn't ask where they were from, what time or place. She didn't ask why she was like the Doctor or what that meant. She didn't ask to know anything about the Doctor more than what they said. Melody didn't ask questions.

But oh, the questions she had.

...

It felt like years before he got his daughter back, though he didn't think it was. On the day they found Melody, Rory wept. He held her tight and cried into her hair, and promised her he'd always keep her safe. Amy gave him most of a minute before insisting she be allowed to hold her daughter too, and then he held them both together. Melody did not hug them back at first, just stood there while they kept their arms around her. She did not speak, though they spoke to her. They told her that they loved her, and had missed her, that she was their daughter. They did not try to explain what she was--they did not know, beyond the simple phrase 'part Time Lord', and knew that when she was ready to hear, she would ask. As they sat with her Rory could feel her pushing at his mind, at the walls he had erected. Her touch was light, and fumbling, and he doubted she even knew it was there. He knew, or rather he guessed, that she was testing him. Trying to feel if he was safe. Trying to feel if he was her father.

In 1969 he had gotten a glimpse of the people who had taken her. At Demon's Run, he had experienced their wrath, their trickery. She had been their captive all her life so far--no wonder she was wary.

And so he tried to be patient, and when he saw the hurt, frightened look in Amy's eyes and heard her voice becoming guarded, he put his hand on her knee in comfort. And he was patient, and he didn't force her, didn't force either of them, even though it killed him. Even though he wanted to scream and shake them and yell at the universe to just fix itself already, damn it, because he'd waited more than 2000 years for his family and he didn't think that he could wait a moment longer. Even though he wanted to cut a bloody swath through the people that had taken his daughter, to make sure they would never hurt her again. To lock the door and pull her and Amy into his arms and never, ever let them go because damn it, they were his. He waited.

Because he had waited more than 2000 years for his family, and he would wait as long as it took.

And that night he carried his girl to bed in a bedroom on the TARDIS, and tucked her in and kissed her fore head and petted her beautiful hair.

"Goodnight, Melody," he whispered to the sleepy girl, who was clutching the scrap of fabric which had her name on it.

"Goodnight, Dad," she said, the first words she had said to him, and something inside him broke. "Dad?"

"Yeah?" he answered, tentatively, hopefully, trying not to frighten her with the force of his joy.

"Where are you from?"

"Leadworth," said Rory, his voice breaking slightly. He sat down on the bed beside Melody. "And then Rome. And then Leadworth again."

"And where is Mummy from?"

"Leadworth. Actually, no, Scotland. Then Leadworth. Then Leadworth again. Mostly Leadworth, actually."

Melody looked at him. "You're a centurion, right? Is that from when you were from Rome? And how come you said Leadworth twice in a row? Where in Scotland is Mummy from? And-"

Rory laughed, and held a finger to Melody's lips. "You should ask your mum about Scotland. And the rest is...a very long story. But yes, I am a centurion, or I was, or something, and that is from when I was from Rome. I was also made of plastic. The rest is going to have to wait until morning, though," he said, because he did not think he could talk much longer without crying. He kissed her forehead again. "Sleep, Melody."

"I'm not tired. Please tell me now."

He shook his head, smiling. "Maybe you aren't tired, but I am. It has been a very long day. Tomorrow, I promise. Now go to sleep."

Melody pouted, and rolled over. "Yeah. Tomorrow."

Rory buried his head in his hands. He knew that pout. He knew that voice. That was Amy's pout, and Amy's voice when people used to promise to come back. "Hey," he said, reaching out to touch Melody lightly on the shoulder. He rolled her over gently so that he was looking her in the eye, and continued. "I promise, okay? Listen, I once waited 2000 years to keep your mother safe. Which is another story you will hear tomorrow. Because if I once waited 2000 years, alone, in the dark, to keep your mother safe, and if I haven't regretted that for one second since I did it, then I will definitely, definitely be there when you wake up. I promise." He brushed a blonde curl out of her eyes. "And I always keep my promises."

...

"Was your name always Rory Pond? What about Mum? 'Cause I know people's names change sometimes when they get married, but the Doctor only told me those ones- well, except 'Roranicus Pondicus', but you said that wasn't your name really. Where does that name come from? It sounds kind of Roman. You said you were from Rome, were you still called Rory when you were from Rome? Did you know the fabric scrap you gave me says 'River Song' on it? I thought you said it had my name, my name isn't River Song, its Melody Pond, which I guess is a little bit like River Song, but not really. Why does it say River Song on it?"

Rory waited patiently for his daughter to stop gabbling. He'd spent the last three hours telling her all about Leadworth and Rome and the Second Big Bang (at least as much as he could given that she was a part of it- he'd spent more than an hour the previous night outside Melody's room, going over that with the Doctor) and quite honestly he was grateful for the break.

"My name used to be Rory Williams," he said, when she finally finished. "It was still Rory when I was a Roman, but your mum thought that was weird and called me Roranicus. That's why the Doctor calls me Roranicus Pondicus sometimes. It isn't a proper Roman name though. Your mum used to be called Amelia, but she likes to be called Amy now, most of the time at least. As for the fabric scrap, that has your name on it, but its written in the language of this girl we met when you were born. She had been looking for the Doctor for a really long time, ever since she met him when she was little, and she came from a forest. And the only water in the forest is the river, apparently, so she used the word for river instead of the one for pond."

River looked at him, considering. "Oh. Dad?"

"Yeah?"

"Can I be called River?"

"River Pond?" asked Rory, wrinkling his nose.

"River Song. Because its my name, but its also not my name. And I like my name, but...its like, every time I hear it, I can hear the people who captured me saying it. And when they said it, it was the only thing I had to remember you and mum by. But now it isn't, and...so, just, could I be called River, please? Because its my name, but it isn't. And Song is a stupid first name. So River."

Rory smiled, and pulled Melody (or River, actually) onto his lap. "I think," he said, pulling her hair away from her neck, "that that is a very good idea. And River is a wonderful name." He kissed her hair. "You should ask your mum what she thinks, though."

"Mum shot at me," said Melody (River), settling back against her father. "Is she angry?"

"She shot at you?"

"Yeah, at the orphanage. I was in the spaceman suit and she shot at me."

Rory frowned. "She isn't angry, Melody. River. Not at you. She was just scared. She didn't know it was you, she thought it was somebody else. And she didn't know who you were. She'd never shoot at you if she knew who you were. Not on purpose, not if she could help it. I promise."

River smiled and snuggled closer. "Okay."

...

"Dad, what's a Time Lord?"

The question came alone, tentative, not one in a stampede like all the others. When he heard it, Rory swallowed, and smiled, and lifted River up in his arms. "Come on," he said. He carried her into the console room.

"Doctor, do you remember what we talked about?" he said into the Doctor's ear, as he set River down gently on the ground. She hung on his arm. "Well it's time now. She wants to know what a Time Lord is."

The Doctor nodded, and leaned against the console as Rory knelt in front of River.

"I'm going to go and make some dinner, alright River? The Doctor can answer your questions about Time Lords and stuff." She nodded, and let go of his arm.

"Okay, River. You going by River now?" She nodded. "Good name. Bit like Pond, but completely different. Very pretty. Come on, get comfortable," said the Doctor, lifting her up onto the jump-seat. "This is going to be a very long story. And I bet you have a lot of questions, yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Alright." The Doctor sat down next to her. "Once upon a time, a long long time ago, there was a world which isn't there anymore. The trees on that world had silver leaves, which sparkled and shone like a forest fire at sunrise, and the grass was a deep blood red. There were schisms there, and from the schisms there grew plants like the one this ship is grown of. The sky is burnt orange, and sometimes at the second sunset the second moon looks purple." The Doctor didn't seem to notice that he had switched to present tense, though River did. "That world is called Gallifrey. There are shining citadels with great white buildings inside domes, and beautiful old houses, some domeless, some domed, in the hills outside the cities. There are great quarries of rock, and there is a pit of diamonds. Long, long ago, before the men on Gallifrey were Time Lords, a man was born called Rassilon. He had a friend who was called Omega, and they were scientists..."

The Doctor was right. It was a very long story. It lasted until dinner, and continued afterwards, late into the night. River sat, so entranced by images of silver leaves and purple moons which danced inside her head that she did not ask another question until late the next day, when the Doctor's story was finally finished.

And even then, when the Doctor had said all he had to say, she found she had no questions. Not yet. Her mind was full of colours and memories of things she hadn't lived, and she could feel her eyes getting heavy.

Her father picked her up off the jump-seat and carried her to bed, and lay her down, and tucked her in, and kissed her on the forehead.

That night River dreamed she was a pond. The pond became a river, and the river ran through the forest, its too-blue water covered in red, red petals.

The leaves in the forest were silver.


	3. Green: Leaves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> River and her parents have just moved to a new planet, in a new time, and River misses home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OMG THE FLUFF.
> 
> There is a lot of it.
> 
> Okay, so, honestly, this is my least favorite chapter. I'm really unsure about it--for one thing, it's pretty much straight fluff, and personally I think I do much better when I thoroughly break my characters (break-the-Rory is one of my favorite games, after all). I've edited a bit, which hopefully helped a little--and I'm hoping that some of you will enjoy it, at least. Please, I would love concrit on this chapter, if you have it--or reviews in general, if you don't.

The leaves on D'Voshen were green. She hadn't expected them to be—she had thought they'd be purple or orange or red, if there were leaves at all. Imagined them silver (she always imagined leaves silver, even on Earth, ever since the Doctor had first told her about Gallifrey). But they weren't purple or orange or red, and they definitely weren't silver. They were green, so very very green. Greener than they were in New York (on the two trees or so that there were in New York). Greener than they were in Leadworth, even. It was unsettling, like being in a simulation of the world, instead of the real thing. It made her miss home even more.

And she missed home a lot.

She thought maybe it was because she didn't have one for so long. It wasn't that she had a lot of friends in Leadworth, there was so much stuff she couldn't talk about, but her grandparents were there, and her bedroom was there, and the apple tree on Third Street, and her dad's old tree house, and the library—oh God, the library! It wasn't even that big, in fact it bordered on incredibly small, but they had lots of old books, and they'd get in any ones they didn't have from the library in the city, all she had to do was ask. She was always finding books which still had her mother's name written on the cards inside (they'd switched to computers maybe a year after her mum moved there, but most of the cards never got thrown out).

Here, there were no grandparents (not her grandparents, anyway), and no apple trees, and no tree house, and if there was a library she hadn't found it yet.( As it turned out, there was a library—it was small and built of scraps of wood and full of all the books they could bring on colony ships, and the minute she saw it she loved it more than almost any place she'd ever been.)

In the two days she'd so far lived on D'Voshen she had yet to make any friends--no surprise, these things took time, and she wasn't exactly experienced. Besides, she wasn't sure she should even be trying--after all, they weren't going to stay. They'd have to leave again, eventually. Probably soon. The people who took her would never stop looking for her, and she'd be found and she'd be taken, and it would happen again and again...and they'd never be able to stay. Not anywhere. Which was why, when Rory went looking for her, he found her sitting underneath one of the trees behind their new house, digging at the ground with a stick.

"Hey, Little Bird," he said, sitting down next to her.

"Hey Dad," she said.

He watched her as she tore at the dirt and the grass with the stick, sticking her tongue between her teeth. "Did the ground do something to you, River?" he asked, after a minute. "Because it can do that sometimes. I got kidnapped by an asteroid once."

She shrugged.

They sat in silence for a few minutes more. Rory picked a purple flower which was growing in the shade of the tree, and twirled it in his fingers. Then he stuck it behind River's ear. "I'm sorry we had to leave Leadworth," he said, pushing her hair away from her face.

The stick stilled, and River bit her lip. "Me too," she said, not looking at her father. "I know you always wanted to have a family there."

"I always wanted to have a family, River, with your mum. There had very little to do with it. Hey," he said, playing with her hair, "I don't care where we live, as long as I can keep you safe. And I bet you'll make a lot of new friends, now that you can tell people a bit more about your life."

River shrugged again. "You said—in that story about the Dream Lord, you said your dream was that you were living with Mum in a little house in Leadworth, and she was pregnant. Also you had a pony tail."

"And doesn't that just prove what a bad idea that would be? Seriously, me in a ponytail? Talk about unfortunate fashion decisions."

"Dad, the only person I've ever met with less fashion sense than you is the Doctor."

Rory glared. "That is patently untrue."

"You wear too much plaid."

"I like plaid!" River's lip twitched, and Rory grinned. "I knew I could make you smile."

"No," said River stubbornly, and when she looked at him she was definitely not smiling. Her eyes were damp. "I really am sorry."

"River, when I married your mum, and we went away with the Doctor, she said goodbye to Leadworth. I didn't. Do you know why?"

"Because you weren't done there?" suggested River, drawing circle in the dirt she'd dug up, using her finger now. Even as she said it she knew it wasn't the answer he was thinking of.

Rory looked at her seriously, sternly. It was the same look he used whenever he gave her a lecture. "River, I didn't say goodbye to Leadworth because there was nothing to say goodbye to. You know that saying, 'home is where your heart is'? Well, my heart is with your mum, and with you. You're my family, and my home is wherever my family is. I never said goodbye to home because I never left my home, River. You are my home."

River nodded and rested her head on Rory's shoulder.

He kissed her hair, and put an arm around her shoulder. "Come on, it's not all bad here is it?"

"The leaves are too green," said River, pouting.

"Oh thank God!" Rory said, throwing back his head, "I thought it was just me!"

He pulled River closer, and they sat like that for a moment. He kissed her hair again. "You really miss Leadworth, huh?"

River nodded.

"Come on," he said, "I have an idea."

He stood up, brushing the dirt from his trousers, and helped River to her feet. He led her to the barn.

Inside was a pile of scrap wood. "I think we should build you a tree house. Like the one I had when I was a kid in Leadworth." He smiled. "Maybe it'll make the leaves less green."


	4. Blue: Lessons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> River's mother taught her many things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And finally, in the fourth story, we get to see Amy!

River's father told her many stories when she was growing up, and read her many books. Her mother read her many books, also, but she only ever told one story.

Her mother's story was the story of a box.

"One day, when I was very small, a box landed in my garden—that's your grandparent's garden—on top of my shed—that's your grandparent's shed, you know the one—and a man fell out," her mother would tell her. "The box was old, and blue, and so, so beautiful, and the man inside stole it away from his people. The box could go anywhere in time and space, and I wanted to go with it. But the box went away, and it didn't come back for a very long time. When it did I was all grown up. But the Doctor fixed that, and the box helped. And one day it will help you, too."

Every story started with the box—the story of how she met Rory ("One day a box landed in my garden. I loved it very much, and waited for it for fourteen years. And everyone thought I was mad, including your dad, but he liked me that way"), the story of how apples had faces ("I never used to like apples, and neither did the Doctor when his box crashed in my garden—here, they always taste better with faces on"), the story of the pirates ("and then the box disappeared, and we were stuck on a ship with a wet mermaid lady in a dress, who your dad thought was pretty"). Even the story of the Last Centurion began with the box and ended with the box, and had another box in the middle. There was even a story where the box came alive.

It wasn't just the box, River knew, it was who the box belonged to (with, her mum always said, never to, not with those two). The box was the Doctor's box, and the box wasn't the box without the Doctor—but the Doctor wasn't the Doctor without the box. The box was in her mother's dreams every night for fourteen years, River knew, and it used to sing to her when she slept there (though not the way it sang to River's father, and definitely not how it sang to River).

And the box taught her a lesson (there were so many lessons in the stories her mother told, but this one was the first).

"Doors aren't just doors, River—not the good ones, anyhow. And the TARDIS isn't just any door, it's a home, and a friend. But it's a door, too, and doors are important. They're more important than the places they open to, sometimes."

River never forgot that lesson (she never forgot any of them) and it was the first thing she wrote in her journal when she got it.

It was the first lesson her mother taught her, but it was not the most important.

That she learned the night her mother gave her the journal.

That day she heard her mother fighting with the Doctor, heard them yelling at each other while her dad attempted to mediate. River sat in the room and tried not to listen, even though she knew that it was wrong. Knowledge was power, she knew, and power was important. The Doctor had so much power, she needed everything she could to match him. Stay aware, always, don't lose sight of your surroundings. Listen, analyze, understand...she knew all of this (and knew that it was lies, that sometimes she needed to stop listening and rest, that she was safe, as safe as she would ever be, and could trust that things would work out...should trust...but that didn't stop her telling herself to listen). 

That night her mother came into her bedroom, holding a blue book. "River, I need you to listen to me," she said, sitting on the bed in front of her. "You will always be defined by the Doctor. Your life will always be all about the Doctor. People will always think of you in terms of the Doctor, as soon as they find out you know him. As far as the universe is concerned, the Doctor is at the center, and everyone—especially you—revolves around him. But you are not the Doctor. You're more than him. Everyone else will always define you by him, but you don't have to, because you are so much more. The Doctor will make you who you are, but that doesn't mean you aren't anything without him." She handed River the journal. "Take this. Remember. Write down what I've told you, use it to figure out who you are—use the Doctor. Teach the Doctor who he is, and let him teach you. Let him teach you that you're more than just a planet, orbiting the Doctor's sun. You're Melody Pond, you're River Song—whatever your name is, you are yourself. Use this to remember that."

River took the journal, and watched her mother leave. The journal was blue, and looked like the TARDIS, and she thought how appropriate it was that the door to her memories was modeled after the door to the universe—that was how the door looked in the Doctor's head, the times she had tried to open it, and when she turned to look inside herself, that was how hers looked as well.

The first thing written in the journal was not the first thing River wrote. When she got it there was one line, written in the center of the first page, a note from her mother.

"When the crack swallows the center," it said, "all the stars will stay behind."

She didn't understand it for a very long time.

The day she did, she cried.


	5. Yellow: Sunflowers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> River remembers, and River forgets.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And finally we reach the chapter with warnings: there's nothing graphic here, but it does talk about psychic invasion and character death.

The flowers are different, depending on the planets they go to. Some of the planets are close enough to earth-normal that they don't need terraforming, and some do, but all of them are different enough that the flowers are not like the ones in Leadworth. It depends on the time, too- flowers change and evolve and are bred selectively as history marches on, and some of them are crude imitations people created after the original species went extinct (the continents may have all been kept in line, but the humans desolated their world before they left).

There's one flower that is always there, no matter where they go. It's yellow, and beautiful, and not quite real. It's a sunflower, and it's in her mother's favorite painting. It hangs wherever the light is best (her mother taught her about light and paintings and Vincent Van Gogh, who is her mother's favorite painter).

The funny thing is, the light changes too. The flowers in the painting are called sunflowers, but they don't always look like the Sun. Sometimes the Sun is orange or red, sometimes you can only see it through the enviro-dome. Sometimes there's more than one Sun (though not terribly often) and when that happens the suns are very different—smaller and cooler and farther away, and there's almost always a dome. Once they live on a space-station, and then there isn't any Sun at all—only stars, a vast, uncountable number of stars, as far as the eye can see.

But the flowers in the painting are always yellow, no matter where they go, and no matter what colour the light is. And there are always twelve of them, twelve beautiful yellow sunflowers in a beautiful yellow vase.

And the vase always has her mother's name on it.

She asks her mother where she got it once, and whether the 'Amy' it is for is her.

"The Doctor gave it to me," her mother says. "The night he brought you home, he found it and he gave it to me. To remember."

"To remember what?" River asks.

"The bad things. And the good things. And how to make a bad life better." River can see a wistful smile on her mother's face, and her mother closes her eyes, as if reciting something long-remembered. "The Doctor taught me that life is a pile of good things, and a pile of bad things, and the way to make it better is to add more good things, because no matter how bad the bad things are they can never take the good things away. Not as long as you remember."

River stands in silence for a moment. "What if they won't let you remember?" she asks, finally.

Her mother smiles, and runs a hand through her hair. "Then you yell and scream and bite until they do."

And River does.

River remembers, no matter what they do, remembers the painting. And once she remembers the painting, she remembers everything, remembers her father and her mother and the Doctor and all of the good things she has ever had.

And once she remembers the good things, there is nothing they can do to make her break.

She keeps the painting in a room inside her head, a yellow room, with a plain brown door, locked and hidden away at the back of her mind, through a thousand twisting corridors. She shows her father, once, where it is—she trusts him more than anyone, and knows that he will never tell them how to find it.

Once she loses the door. She hides it so deep in her mind that they can't find it, but they rip the knowledge of it from her mind, along with everything she keeps on the surface—leave her a wreck, half mad, scarred and shattered, unable to find the good things or even recall why she should.

She doesn't recognize her father when he comes for her.

He kneels in front of her, and looks her in the eye. Puts his hands on her shoulders. Red and yellow and blue flash inside her mind and tell her that she should remember, but she can't.

"You need to trust me, River," he says (they never call her that here, it is not her name, but she knows that he means her), "And let me in."

He doesn't push, doesn't even try. He waits for her to open the door. They do not do that, here, but take her mind when they want (it doesn't take long, now, before they get through her defenses—it used to take hours, even days, of pain and confusion before they broke down the door). But he waits until she opens the door, and that is why she does. She opens it just far enough for him to get inside.

"Come with me," he whispers, and she follows him through the corridors. They go in silence until they reach the room. He opens the door with the key she gave him oh so long ago.

Then she sees the painting, and remembers.

After her father dies, she tries to lose the room again, to forget. It almost breaks her, losing it—when the Doctor finds her, wandering the TARDIS corridors, she aims her gun at him and almost shoots.

He raises his hands in the air. "Don't shoot," he says. "I have something to show you, but you have to let me in."

"What makes you think I'd ever let you in?" she asks.

"Because I know you can't resist your curiosity. I'll show you the universe if you let me in, River. I'll show you amazing things. And you know I could—they'll have taught you that. And you know that whatever I want inside your head, trick or no, it will fascinate you. But you need to let me in."

She lets him in, because he is right, and always has been. Even as they held her captive, the Doctor always captivated her.

She lets him in, but he has no route.

He searches her mind for two days without pausing. Finally, he finds the door.

When he finds the door he has no key.

"You have to open the door, if you want to see it," he says.

"I don't know how," she answers back, because she doesn't.

They search for it together, in rooms and on windowsills, and hidden under floorboards. She stands inside her mind and lets him reach inside her chest. He pulls out her heart, bloody and still beating in his hand, and pulls the key from it. He places the key in the lock, and turns it. The door swings open, and River follows the Doctor inside (she makes him lead the way, she will not let him stand behind her).

She stands inside the yellow room and sees the yellow painting.

And then she falls to weeping.

She falls to weeping, and she beats at the Doctor's chest as he holds her tight, and hates him almost as much as she hates herself.

She falls to weeping, and curses her heart, and vows to cut it out next time.

She falls to weeping, and hates her mother too—the painting was her mother's, after all.

The Doctor kisses her hair and tells her to remember everything, and rocks her back and forth and whispers words. "Remember apples," he says, "and tree houses and when you were sick and fairy stories at bedtime."

And she does, and wants to kill him.

"It hurts," she says, her voice hoarse and breaking. "It  _hurts_  to remember."

"Remember sunflowers," he says, because he saw the painting and he knows these things, somehow.

And she does, and wants to kill him.

She remembers her mother, and Vincent Van Gogh, and yellow sunflowers in the kitchen, the living room, the library, the dining room. She remembers good things and bad things and how to stop them taking things away.

She remembers, and is glad.

She promises her father she will not forget again, and promises herself as well.

She breaks that promise when the crack takes him. The first time she sees her father after he returns to his existence, it takes all of the control that he, and her mother, and the Doctor, and her captors, and even she herself taught her over the years. It takes all of her willpower not to run to him and hold him and tell him how sorry she is, for killing him and forgetting him and breaking her promise.

"Wedding present," she says, and can feel her eyes getting damp. She struggles to keep the tears from her voice, but she very nearly succeeds. "For Amy. Congratulations." She leaves, before her will can snap, and sits outside the reception and remembers. She watches as Amy looks at the book, as she remembers the Doctor back to life. She whispers an apology, for even with the painting she failed to save her father.

And now he is back, and he cannot remember her.

She closes her eyes to the sky and the world, and sits inside the yellow room. She sits with the painting and her memories, and remembers when they couldn't be taken away.


	6. Purple: Bruises

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> River is always bruised.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More mentions of captivity, mind!rape, and this time, actual physical abuse from River's captors--again, though, no actual descriptions of the act.
> 
> Also, this chapter was inspired by Hailstones and Halibut Bones by Mary O'Neal.

River's skin is covered in bruises. It is always covered in bruises: when she is Melody, when she is Little Girl, when she is River.

The first time she is Melody, when they take her away, they treat her kindly. They give her a room and keep her safe in a great big life-support suit. But they train her and teach her and craft her, and as she runs their courses she falls. She bangs her knees on stone tunnels which she runs without shoes, and the weapons they give her hit her limbs and leave marks which hurt for weeks afterward. When they teach her to fire guns, she falls, shocked by the backfire, and bruises her palms and her thighs.

Her bruises are a fact of life; that doesn't mean she doesn't hate them.

Then she escapes, and has no name. They call her only 'Little Girl' when they see her, and blame themselves or unnamed thieves for things she takes.

She has bruises, then, too, bruises from falling, from fights with boys twice her size, from people knocking her about in the street (the weaker she gets, the more this happens—she can feel her body failing).

She barely notices her bruises then; she has more important things to think on.

After the Doctor finds her, she becomes River Song. She goes home with her parents, and is happy.

But still, new bruises appear on her skin every day.

She loves these bruises, is proud of them, treats them like a gallery of purple on her legs. She shows them off to kids at school, brags about them to whoever's at the playground. She gets them climbing, everything and anything within her reach—whatever she can do to try and reach the stars. She gets them jumping off the swings and landing on gravel, rolling down rocky hills and leaping from the roof of her friend's garage. She never gets them fighting, though. She doesn't need to now, and no one here could take her.

One day she climbs a mulberry tree. She eats the berries, paints her face with their juice. They stain her hands purple to the wrists, and dye her face to match her legs.

When she jumps down from the tree, she bangs her leg, and knows another bruise will join her gallery.

She bikes home (no new bruises this ride) and runs into her kitchen. Her father sweeps her up into his arms and kisses her on the nose. "Hello Little Bird," he says. "And what sort of bird are you today? A Purple Martin?"

She giggles (he has taught her all about birds, for she loves anything that flies, and he learned lots of things locked up in archives). "I climbed a mulberry tree," she says, grinning.

He laughs. "I can tell. You seem to have brought some of it home with you." He sets her down and goes to the pantry. "You still hungry?" he asks, and she nods. "Tell you what," he says, taking out the bread and jam and placing them on the counter, "Purple jam for a purple girl."

The jam is blackberry, the toast wheat. She eats four pieces- twice as many as him (she grows half an inch that month).

She loves her bruises, and her purpling skin, and loves what they make her remember.

When she is ten they take her again. She does not do what they say, but fights them every step. She does not eat or train for them, and so they beat her. They beat at her body, make her hurt and bleed, and they beat at her mind, try to force their way inside.

When her parents come for her she is covered in purple, bruises which stay for weeks.

These bruises she tries to forget.

When they get home her father gives her a bracelet, silver with amethyst stones. As he fastens it around her wrist he tells her what it's for. "Purple stones for purple bruises, which cover my Purple Martin," he says. "Every bruise has a story, and when you put the stories together they make you." He kisses her hair and smiles. "And that," he says, "Is a very fine thing to be."

She treasures the bracelet. The next time they take her, the men try to take it away. She bites them and threatens to kill them if they try again, they know she could. (Once, when she forgets, she lets them take it. When her father comes for her, he tries to make her leave before she gets it back—she doesn't listen.)

After she kills her father, she takes the bracelet off. She does not put it on again until she's served her time.

When the Doctor puts her mind in CAL, she does not have the bracelet. She leaves it in a lockbox on the ship—it won't fit properly under her suit. She asks CAL to make the bracelet for her; she doesn't feel properly herself without it. She already cannot bruise, no matter how many times she falls. The children in the computer don't bruise either. She plays football with them, runs and hikes and jumps with them. She watches them climb trees and jump from roofs. She watches as they fall and their skin is left unmarked.

She could ask CAL to make her bruise, but she cannot ask that for the others.

Bruises mean nothing to them.


	7. Gold: Forever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> River doesn't want monogamy. She does want forever.
> 
> How the Doctor proposed in the colours!verse.

When the Doctor proposed to River, he didn't give her a ring. He didn't get down on one knee or do any of the things you're supposed to do. When the Doctor proposed, they had just saved the universe.

Well, part of it anyway.

"Doctor Song, will you marry me?" he asked as they ran down the corridor of the exploding space station.

"Down!" she shouted, diving towards him as she shot at the men pursuing them.

The men fell down behind her, and she looked down into the Doctor's face. He lifted his head a little, shooting the fallen men a worried look.

"That was on stun, yes?"

"Anything for you, Sweetie," she said, rolling her eyes.

He grinned up at her. "Well?" he said. "Question stands."

She looked at him like he was mad (which he was, of course). "No!" she said, and stood. She pulled him to his feet. "Come on," she said, shaking her head. "We have to get to the TARDIS."

In the TARDIS, they discussed the Doctor's proposal.

"Do you know how many chemicals, how many hormones are raging through a person's body when they're intoxicated? When they've just had drugs, or alcohol, or sex? People say stupid things when they're intoxicated."

The Doctor looked confused. "I'm not intoxicated. We haven't had sex—though we could later, I certainly wouldn't object—and I don't drink, particularly. I certainly haven't been drinking today. I've been saving the universe today. We just saved the universe." He perked up. "Isn't that lovely? Let's get married."

River sighed. "You're not drunk, and you're not on drugs, and you haven't had sex—yet—but you did just save the universe. That would get anyone's adrenaline flowing, for you it's like being attacked by a tiger while you have sex drunk and high. You want to get married, ask me properly. Now, could you take me to see my parents please? "

The Doctor sighed, and took her home.

...

"The Doctor asked me to marry him," she told her father as she sat at the kitchen table, watching him cook dinner.

"Yeah?" After a moment, he seemed to realize what he had said, and turned around. "I mean, congratulations. Yay, you and the Doctor. Um, what did you say?" he asked. She had a feeling he already knew the answer. Sometimes it was annoying how much he knew about her future.

"No," she answered.

He raised his eyebrows. "Really?"

She nodded, and grinned. "Why, did I surprise you?"

He laughed and turned back to the stove. "Little Bird, you always surprise me. Here," he said, bringing her a spoon and lifting it to her lips, "Try this."

She tasted it, running her tongue around her mouth. "Tastes like Korspith," she said after a minute. "It's a sort of stew they have on Done-Aye. The Doctor took me there last week."

Rory nodded slowly. "And is stew from Done-Aye a good thing?" he asked.

"Definitely," River said, grinning. "Needs salt, though." Rory turned back to the pot, and grabbed the salt from the counter beside him.

"So why did you say no?" he asked.

"Oh that," said River, leaning back in her chair. "That was your fault."

"How is it my fault?" Rory asked.

She propped her feet on the chair across from her, pushing her own backwards so that it balanced on two legs. She grabbed the edge of the table and looked down on the floor, concentrating on what she was doing. "You have unfairly raised my expectations of other men," she said, and let the chair fall forward. Halfway through the fall she grabbed the table again, and pushed herself back once more.

"Blame your mother," Rory said, kissing her on the forehead. "She married me." He raised the spoon to her lips again, and she reached out to try it. "I added some paprika as well," he said. "What do you think?"

She grinned. "Perfect."

"Good," he said. "Dinner should be ready in a few minutes, then. How about you set the table before you fall and end up bleeding all over my kitchen?"

She rolled her eyes—why he still worried after all these years she didn't know—and went to the cabinet. She took out three plates (her favorite ones, yellow and chipped, not the ones they used for company) and started setting the table.

"You know," her father said, putting away the spices which sat out on the counter, "I'm not sure you can really say I unfairly raised your expectations when the man you're with is the Doctor. What did he do, anyway?"

She went to the cutlery drawer, and pulled it open. "He asked me while we were saving the universe. Well, after. With the Doctor, that's kind of like asking someone to marry you when you've just had sex."

He flinched—she was 27 years old and he still hadn't adjusted to the idea of her having sex— and opened the oven to produce a tray of rolls. "Alright, fair enough. You really shouldn't agree to marry someone who has that many excess chemicals running through them. But if you're waiting for the Doctor to propose properly, without all that adrenaline, it's going to be a very long wait. Fetch your mum, would you? Dinner's ready."

...

"So the Doctor asked me to marry him," River told her mum when they had all sat down to eat. "I said no," she said, before her mum could ask.

"Oh yeah?" said Amy. "What did he do?"

"He asked while we were saving the world. I want him to ask properly. Which is your fault, by the way, for marrying someone like Dad. I mean, I don't need a ring or a fairytale wedding, though the ring, at least, would be nice, and I would like him to get down on one knee, if only because it amuses me. But mostly, I just don't want it to be an afterthought. A spur of the moment thing. When he asks, I want it to matter. Because it does matter. I don't know why, exactly, it's not as though I'm planning to be monogamous or anything -but it matters to me. I want to know that it matters to him. I mean, the whole point of a marriage, particularly in a non-monogamous society like the one you live in, like a lot of the ones I grew up in, is to promise someone forever. Actually, Mum, can I see your ring for a second?"

Amy nodded, and held out her hand.

River took it, examining golden ring on her mother's finger. "I don't need a ring," she said, "But I want what it represents. I want gold. Gold is forever, isn't it? Old friends and all that. That's what marriage is about. Gold is important—large portions of Earth's economy revolved around it for a long time—and it's beautiful and it lasts. Gold matters. I want the Doctor to prove that this does, too." River let go of her mother's hand, and turned her attention back to her dinner.

Her father ran his hand through her hair, letting it anchor itself in her curls. He leaned over, and kissed her forehead.

...

When the Doctor came to pick her up a week later, her father pulled him aside.

"What did my dad want to talk to you about?" she asked as he started to fiddle with the console.

"Spoilers," he said. "Where to next?"

...

They saved a planet that time. The Imperial Guards pursued them ("They're the size of elephants, Sweetie! Have you ever tried stunning an elephant?"), and the Doctor pulled her into a room, locking the door behind them with his sonic screwdriver.

He got down on one knee, and started going through his pockets.

"I said not while we're saving the world!"

"You said you want me in my right mind. River, I'm running through corridors, saving the world with you. I'm as close to in my right mind as I'm ever going to get." He took a small box from his pocket, and opened it. "Marry me, River Song."

River stared. "That's an engagement ring."

"Yes."

"Like, an actual engagement ring."

"Yes."

She narrowed her eyes. "That's my mother's engagement ring."

"Yes! River, we've got about a minute before they break down that door. I don't mean to pressure you, but do you think maybe you could answer the question? I'd take an 'I'll think about it'!"

"Where the hell did you get my mother's engagement ring?"

"Your father gave it to me. Look, being married to you is important to me." He placed the ring on the ground, and took her hands. "You are important to me. If a golden ring is what it takes to prove that to you, then that's what I'm going to give you. And if you want a wedding, I'll give you that to. And if what you want is a Time Lord bonding ceremony, then I'll give you that, but we'll need 307 witnesses and fifteen days to do it properly. But I'll give you that, if that's what it takes to prove that this matters. I love you."

And she would have said 'yes' right then, except that no sooner had the words 'I love you' left his mouth then the Imperial Guards broke down the door, and they had to run again.

She killed the Emperor and three of his officers, but she managed to keep from hurting any of the guards (she tried not to kill soldiers if she could help it, particularly ones pressed into service). In the end they saved the world and escaped with their lives. Back in the TARDIS, River threw her arms around the Doctor.

"Yes!" she said. "Yes, I'll marry you. Where's the ring?"

The Doctor took it from his pocket (he had managed to grab it before they ran), and slipped it onto her finger.

"Oh, and Doctor," she said, admiring her mother's ring (hers, now, she reminded herself), "I would like a wedding. I mean, I think my Dad would. And I think I'd love to hear more about this 'bonding ceremony'. First, though," she continued, grabbing the Doctor's shirt and pulling him close, "I have a bonding ceremony for you."

The Doctor grinned. "I bet you do, you naughty thing."

...

When the Doctor slipped the golden wedding band onto her finger, she smiled, and watched the light glint off the metal. "I do," she said, the words clinking like Roman coins in her ear. The Doctor's kiss was cool and sweet, and as he carried her, spinning, over the threshold of the TARDIS, she laughed.

That night as they lay in bed he told her of another ritual, that he'd performed once long ago. A ritual of tattoos and poetry and private, whispered promises.

"Its black ink, normally," he said, as he took a needle from a drawer. "I thought gold, though, for you."

She smiled up at him. "Gold," she said, rolling over so he could reach her back. "To mean forever."


	8. Pink: Erasers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mistakes get good men killed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mentions of character death.

Melody Pond wrote with a pen. Only a pen, never a pencil, because pencil could be erased. You could make mistakes with pencil.

There was no room for mistakes in battle.

She kept on writing everything in pen when she got home.

One night, not long after they got to Leadworth, her father found her rewriting her English assignment.

Her dad came over, and sat down across from her. He placed his big hand on her smaller one, the one that held the pen, and stopped her writing.

"River, you started your homework two hours ago. It's 8:00, it's nearly bedtime. Why haven't you finished yet?"

"I had to rewrite it six times so far. I keep making mistakes with spelling, and slipping into 1960s American vernacular, and sometimes I accidentally use words that don't exist yet."

Rory shook his head. "River, no nine year old girl should be spending two hours on her English homework, especially not one who knows the word 'vernacular'. What do you mean you had to rewrite it, anyway?"

"If I make a mistake I have to start again," she explained carefully, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"Why?" Rory asked, taking his hand off River's. She took advantage of the opportunity to start writing again. "No, River, stop," he said, taking her hand again. "Why don't you cross things out or write a rough draft or even, I don't know, use a pencil?"

"All these mechanisms encourage mistakes," River recited. "There is no room for mistakes in battle."

Rory sighed. "Well, you're not in battle now. Give me your pen," he said. Reluctantly she handed it over. He walked over to the telephone drawer, pulled it open, and tossed the pen in. Then he took out a pencil and a worn pink eraser, and placed them on the table in front of River. "Use these. Erase when you make a mistake. And River, it doesn't have to be perfect. Now, come on, you've got half an hour until bedtime. And if you need help with spelling and words and stuff, ask. Okay?"

River nodded. "Dad?" she said, turning the eraser over in her hand. "Could you help me?"

Rory smiled and sat down again. "Let me see." She handed him the paper. "It's very good. Um…what does kor'tol mean?"

"It's the texture that snow is halfway through melting."

"Ah. Well, it's very pretty, but it isn't a word yet. There aren't very many English words with apostrophes in the middle."

"Okay," said River. "What word do you think I should use instead?"

Rory frowned. "Not sure. Let me see it again?"

...

After that, River used pencils whenever she could. She kept an eraser with her no matter where she went, and it was always pink. When she lived in places where they didn't have pink erasers, she made the Doctor bring them to her.

When her father died, River went through all her drawers. She took out every eraser she had, and threw them all in the bin.

"Mistakes get good men killed," she said, in answer to the Doctor's questioning look.

"Good men always get killed," said the Doctor, as she left.

Then she forgot, and when she remembered, the Doctor gave her the erasers back.

"No," she said. "Not again."

"River, you will always make mistakes, and they will always cost. Writing with a pen won't change that."

"Prove it," she said.

He sighed and took her home to see her mother, although she didn't ask. When they got there she refused to leave the TARDIS.

"Your mother just lost her husband," the Doctor said. "Don't take away her daughter as well."

"Take me to prison please," River said.

The Doctor slammed one of the erasers down on the console, making River flinch. "I'll take you," he said. "But only if you take this back. By your logic you're either a murderer, and you killed your father, in which case you should go to prison, or you're a soldier and your father died in battle. A tragedy, but in a war these things will happen. Choose what you are, River, and I'll take you where you want to go. After you speak to your mother."

River closed her eyes and sighed, picking up the pink eraser and turning it over in her hands.

"I'm not a weapon—that much I can say. And he never wanted me to be a soldier. But he never wanted this at all. I killed him Doctor. You can dress it up in war and glory, but I killed my father. I made a mistake. Look, maybe I can't stop myself making more, but I can punish myself for this one, and for any that come later. That eraser, all the lessons that went with it, they weren't for me. They were for a little girl who wouldn't go to battle. I did, and I killed him, and I'm not that girl anymore. Her daughter," she nodded towards the TARDIS doors, "Is already lost. Take me to prison, Doctor. Leave me the eraser, if it's so important to you." She turned away. "It doesn't matter to me."

The words burned in her throat.

...

When River woke in her cell, the first morning of her sentence at Stormcage, she found the pink eraser sitting on the shelf beside her bed. She held it in her hands, not moving, until the psychologist came to her cell. ("Why would you kill a man who was a hero to so many?" the woman wanted to know—then, when River did not answer, she continued on to ask about her parents. River did not say a word.) River held the eraser tightly in her hand the entire time the woman spoke to her (two hours, total), and when she left River lay on her bed and raised the eraser to her mouth. She kissed it. Then she placed it back on the shelf, where she had found it.

She did not use it again until she had served her time.


	9. Orange: Tigers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> River is afraid, though she does not always know why. She always remembers when the monsters come for her, even when she doesn't.
> 
> And someday she will kill them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More mentions of captivity, as well as discussion of ptsd, panic attacks, and torture, including psychic torture.

River kept a count of all the times they took her, and asked her parents every day to see if she'd lost time.

Sometimes she woke up screaming from her nightmares, panicking, her breath catching in her throat when her parents came to comfort her. She flinched away from their touch, and asked them why she did.

"They took you again," they would say. "Not long this time, and you're back now."

Once when she was 12, she asked her father why she was so frightened, why she still had nightmares.

"They didn't take you again. Not this time," he told her.

"Not what I meant," she said, and he nodded.

"I know," he said, and kissed her hair. "River, there are different kinds of fear. Sometimes when people are afraid it's instinctual, from birth. And sometimes," he pulled her towards him, "It's learned. Like if a tiger attacks you in your kitchen."

She shot him a wild, confused look, like he was mad, and he laughed. "Stay with me. If a tiger attacks you in your kitchen, you get scared. You know why?"

River nodded. "Adrenaline, right?"

"Yeah. It's a natural fear response. That part is built into the body for protection. Unnecessary systems shut down, your heart rate increases; your body goes into fight or flight mode, basically. That's why you have trouble breathing sometimes. Now, if that tiger in your kitchen attacks enough times, eventually you don't need the tiger. Eventually just being in the kitchen is enough to get your adrenaline pumping."

River furrowed her brow. "Like Pavlov's dogs?" she asked, and he nodded.

"That's right, Little Bird. Same basic association principle. That's why you get scared sometimes when people touch you, or when you're in places that remind you of where they take you."

"Oh, said River, looking down at the floor. "Dad?"

"Yes, Little Bird?"

"How do I make the tigers go away?"

"Well," he said, playing with her hair, "The touching part I think I have an answer for, at least. See, the thing about association, is if you walk into your kitchen enough times and find that there's no tiger, sometimes you stop being afraid. So maybe what you need," he continued, pulling her onto his lap, "Is more hugs."

River giggled, and held her father tight. "I can do that." Then she looked up at him, concerned. "But what about the next time? What about when they take me again? And what about the hospitals and laboratories and things?"

River's father moved her off his lap and took her hands. "River, I can't promise you they won't take you again. The odds are very good that they will. I do my best to keep you safe, but whatever I do, someday someone will take you again. Maybe them, maybe someone else. What I can promise you is this: When that happens, I will come for you. I will always come for you. Remember that. They have tigers to scare you with, but you have tigers too. And if you want to be," he said, "You can be a fierce tiger slayer." She put her arms around his neck, and he smiled at her like she meant the world. She loved that smile. "And now," he said, "It is time for all little tiger-slaying birds to go to bed."

…

The next morning at breakfast River's father told her about an idea he'd had.

"Remember that thing I said about tigers?" he said, as handed her a plate of meal cakes sprinkled in sugar. "Well, if you want, I could teach you how to be a tiger slayer," he said.

"Why are we slaying tigers?" asked River's mother, taking her seat at the kitchen table.

"Dad says I'm scared because of tigers, so he's going to teach me how to fight them."

"I see," said River's mother. She grinned. "I suggest biting." River laughed, and nodded.

Rory smiled and placed a plate in front of Amy. "Yeah. So I was thinking, next time the Doctor visits, we could have him take us to the zoo. Back on Earth sometime. We could go see the tigers. And if you want, I could teach you how to use my sword. But only if you want to, River. There are other ways of slaying tigers."

"Like what?" she asked.

"Well, like I said, you could use your own tiger. You can use that wonderful brain of yours. Whenever you get scared, just work out why. Once you've worked out why, all you have to do is solve the problem. And if the problem is all in your head, then all you have to do is lock the tiger in a cage and get it to shut up. I'll help you practice. Just tell me next time you get scared."

And so she did. For the next month, whenever she was afraid she would tell her father. He would help her work out why (the reasons didn't vary much) and help her talk herself down.

The next time they took her, she concentrated on remembering everything her dad would do for her. She concentrated on remembering that he was coming for her, and would always come for her. And she concentrated on remembering that one day she would be a mighty tiger slayer, and she would make herself their nightmare.

…

When her parents came for her, her father asked if she wanted to see the zoo before they moved again.

She said she did.

They went to Earth, in the late 21st century, and saw the tigers in the zoo. ("I could take you to see them in the wild," the Doctor said, but her father gave him a look and said he'd pass.) Her father bought her a stuffed tiger.

She called him Roman, and made him a bright red cape.

…

She didn't learn to fight with swords until she was fourteen. The first time they captured her that year they tried to break into her mind. She wouldn't let them in. It was always this way. This time though, when they finally got in, they made her lose herself. She did not remember why she should not be afraid, and did not remember who was coming for her. And so she gave them what they wished.

Still, they pushed her.

They did not gently take what she would give them, but pounded at her walls until she let them in.

When her father came for her and she remembered him, she asked him to teach her how to fight.

…

River's father taught her to fight tigers, and she promised herself, and Roman, that one day she would. When she was 22 she asked the Doctor to take her with him, so that she could find the people who always took her.

And one day, she did.

"You have a lot of fancy shields, ma'am," she told Madame Kovarian when she found her, "to keep you safe from all the guns you taught me how to use." She held her sword to the woman's throat. "How do you think they'll do with this?"

"Everything I did I did to save us," the woman said.

"Everything you did made you a monster. You wanted a killer, I'm a killer." She trailed the tip of the sword down Madame Kovarian's neck, tracing circles on her breast. She held it to her heart. "And you are the thing I kill." She leaned forward, grabbing the woman's wrist. "First, though, I am gonna make you beg for mercy." River smiled. "Just like I learned not to." She backed up, twirling a strand of hair around her finger. "Let's see. I haven't the time to give you all the gifts which you gave me. How about the time I broke three fingers? How old was I, four? Yes, that seems the place to start." With her free hand River took hold of the woman's right, and snapped the middle three fingers, harshly, one at a time.

The woman screamed.

River repositioned her hand on the woman's arm. "Now, as I said before, I really haven't time for all the wounds which you inflicted on my person. So let's just go for the whole arm, shall we? And we'll start with the other two fingers." She snapped these two, then moved up the arm to break its other bones.

The woman screamed again.

"Hush now, my love. No more of that," said River, cupping the woman's head in her hand. "I'd love to give you a lifetime of broken walls, but I'm afraid I can't. So I'll just give you this instead."

With that River reached inside the woman's mind and twisted, hard. She burned the woman's consciousness with all her might, and the woman shrieked and wept. River felt tears stinging at her eyes—she had never done this before, never gone inside someone's mind this way. She never wished to again.

"For years I had nightmares about you. For years you were the tiger in my kitchen. You are lucky my father taught me mercy, or I would not make your death so swift." She held her sword to the woman's heart again. "So what do you think? Are you ready to beg now?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rory's explanation of how learned fear works is pretty much the one that I got from my first (good) psychologist--a really great doctor who taught me a lot about coping with the after effects of my own trauma.


	10. Shades of Grey: Stories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the beginning there was only black; at the end came only white.

Black:

When she was Melody Pond, they taught her of the black. They taught her of evil. The Doctor, they said, was evil, the most evil and dangerous thing in the universe. They did not teach her of good—perhaps with good came too much mercy—and so for years the black was all she knew.

And even as they taught her of the black, they could not see that it would come to be their undoing.

They could not see that it was the black she craved, the deep, pure black which she could see, right outside her window. The black and the freedom to run from it, to run and fly where the only lights were the stars.

There was always light, where they kept her. On the ships the lights were always on so they could guard her, in the Home there were always lamps outside or men with flashlights inside, and so though they taught her of the black it was years before she could breathe it.

When they taught her of the black they did not call it that, they only called it evil. The books she read spoke of evil men with black hats and black mustaches and long black capes, though, and made out that black was evil. And so Melody called evil black, and asked them of it.

"What colour is evil?" she asked once. "Is it black, like the sky?"

"If you like, dear," Madame Kovarian said tersely when Melody asked her, and told her to get back to training.

The books they gave her had heroes too, men in white hats who fought the men in black. The books were right about the evil, and the books were right about the black, so she asked Madame Kovarian about the men in white.

"Is there really good?' she asked.

"No," said Madame Kovarian. "Good is a fictional construct created by the people of Earth. It's a silly notion, and there shall be no more talk of it."

Gray:

River's parents taught her many things.

The first thing her parents taught her was that good was real.

They taught her, also that the Doctor was not evil. He was shadow and darkness and space, but he burned with light and made himself to gray.

Her mother taught her that shadows like the Doctor could burn like the sun, and her father taught her that family was more important than good or evil.

Her father never told her she should kill, even to save her loved ones—but she watched him, and from him she learned the difference between killing and hurting. She learned that the right thing was not always the good one. She learned that the Doctor needed someone to stop him, someone who would do what was good so that he could do what was right.

Her father taught her good, and mercy, and her mother taught her of Van Gogh.

"Good things and bad things can't exist by themselves," her mother told her. "They need each other. You can make good from bad, beauty from pain, but you need the pain to see the beauty. And if there aren't good things, then there isn't any point."

"What do you do if there are no good things?" she asked her mother.

Her mother looked away, and her father kissed them both on their foreheads. "There are always good things," he told them both.

River's mother smiled, confident again. "That's right. There are always good things; you just have to see them."

River looked down at the floor, chewing her lip. "Does that mean I'm not evil, then?" River asked.

Her parents frowned, and her father knelt in front of her. "River," he told her, "There might be such a thing as evil somewhere in the universe, but everything I know is far more complicated than that. And even if it weren't for that, you wouldn't be evil. Anyone pure enough to be evil would have to be in love, and love precludes evil. Do you love anyone, River?"

River nodded. "I love you. And Mum." She thought for a moment. "And the Doctor!" she said.

"Then you can't be evil," her father told her, and she smiled.

White:

The library was white. There was no evil there, no shadow. Outside the Computer, of course, there lurked a hungry darkness ready to devour all who entered (although the darkness was not evil, either). But inside there was only light and white and brightness.

In Ancient China, white was the colour of funerals. River had gone there once. Not exactly enlightened--few civilizations on Earth ever were--but fairly interesting as places went. It suited her death, she supposed—as far from the black and the shadow as she could get. No way to touch the stars in CAL's computer, and she hated to watch the skies there. The stars in the computer were nothing more than points of light. She could have asked to fly those simulated skies, but the cold falsity of the virtual heavens was would asphyxiate her quicker than the real thing ever could.

As prisons went, it was a nice one—more like protective custody than anything else. She had a family (not the one she'd dreamed of in her youth, but those dreams had long since been replaced) and she was safe. No tigers would come for her here, unless she wished them. Still, it was a prison. She had spent her youth in captivity, and would live out her afterlife there, until the library crumbled and CAL shut down forever.

She told the children-who-couldn't-grow-up every story she had of the Doctor, taught them of the gray and the black, of the shadow and the dark and how the light refracts when given crystal.

"Do bad things really happen?" the little boy asked once, as if asking if monsters were real.

River looked down at her hands, at her white dress (her funeral gown, she called it in her mind), and her pure unblemished skin. She looked at the places where once there had been scars. She looked at the children, safe in their beds.

"No, my love," she said. "It's only a story."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so it ends. Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed. As I mentioned, I have some other fics in this verse, which I'll be posting soon.

**Author's Note:**

> As mentioned in the summary, this takes place in my colours!verse. I have some other fics in that verse (currently up at ff.net) which were also written before LKH aired. Once I finish posting the rest of this story I'll be putting those up here as well.


End file.
